


Historical Disintegration

by tritonvert



Series: Necromancy Enforcement Agency [2]
Category: French Revolution RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tritonvert/pseuds/tritonvert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to Historical Reintegration; the clients of the Necromancy Enforcement Agency.  It probably makes more sense to look at Reintegration first...  It's fundamentally ridiculous, though, so read however you want!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maximilien Robespierre, December

When I asked for something to write with, a memory came to me, very nearly; a memory of lying somewhere, in an unfamiliar pain, and gesturing for pen and ink and paper.  I think it was cowardice, some weak quality of the soul, that kept and keeps me from dwelling on that memory.  Now I put all my efforts into thinking of the present and only the present, or nothing before the last handful of days.

Marat joined me while I was asleep; I think I have slept more in the last week than in the last year.  I had been here two or three days when I woke up to see him sitting on the floor and watching me.  He has approached our condition as a man of science.  He studies the lamps and has pronounced them electrical.  He too asked for pen and paper.

Two days later they brought Camille Desmoulins.  They are very young men, our captors, children I would say; they made it seem hard work carrying him down the stairs, though I would not have thought Camille was a heavy man.  He looked very slight; he looked like a corpse.  ~~I did not see him dead in germinal.~~   However, Marat studied him as well.  He measured his pulse, placed an ear to his chest, opened his eyelids under the brightest light, and pronounced Camille alive.  It was several hours before he awoke.

  
The same weakness of the soul that keeps me from studying my memory keeps me from speaking to him more than strictly necessary.  Not only do I sleep, I pretend to sleep. Marat does not disguise his disappointment in the quality of his company.  After his harangue Camille no longer weeps, but neither he nor I can show the same restless energy as Marat. It is his theory that our captors have a method of spying on us.  Whenever he goes to examine the small window in our cellar dungeon, one of the young men comes down to interrupt us.  Marat said to us quietly that the next time one of them comes down alone, we must all three overpower him.  But since then they come in pairs.


	2. Marat, January

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't actually all that hard.

How did we escape? Easily, given two or three bold men and the idiocy of our captors. Among the former I count myself, Saint-Just, and Danton. Robespierre was useless, remote, sickly; and Camille was soggy. He will be no good to anyone if he can't be brought back to his usual light disposition, but I have better things to do than hold his hand. 

 

Our captors were, firstly, very young. Schoolboys, I judge. They can have had no experience of war or captivity, and most of them went home on holiday after their examinations. Secondly, although they had some method of spying on us they allowed us writing material, which permitted unspoken communication. Thirdly, they were barely more familiar with the terrain than we. They confined us in the cellar of a house, a cellar not intended for this purpose; in many places a system of shafts for ventilation and pipes for plumbing allowed me to listen to their conversations, amplifying the sound with a cup from the washroom. Further, there was a window opening to the ground. After my first investigations they boarded this over but it was clear from the sound of the work that they used only a few simple nails. A strong man can manage that. I fashioned a lever from the pieces of a disassembled metal bookshelf. More importantly, the window was marked plainly FIRE ESCAPE LATCH LIFT HERE TO REMOVE.


	3. Danton, January

I’m supposed to make a statement for the police.  The police!  Well, all right: I, Georges-Jacques Danton, having been executed after a farce of a trial, awoke in an unfamiliar room under the watchful and jaundiced eye of the late sainted Marat.  The English have a play in which the Devil says to Faust: Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.  Let’s say that was my first thought.

Seeing Robespierre and Saint-Just here didn’t change my mind.  But before I could speak Marat leaned against my cheek and told me not to even think about doing anything to them.  _Go slowly, we’re being watched_ , he hissed.  “By angels?” “By men.”

Through the night he explained our position in whispers.  I had a damnable headache.  But I understood we weren’t in Heaven.  Marat had plans for our escape.  I told him I wasn’t going into any of his sewers; he said he had something in mind that wouldn’t make me dirty my hands.  And he slipped me a bit of paper to read when it was light. 

It looked clear enough when I had a chance to study his message.  The boys holding us prisoner planned to take a holiday—a holiday!  When they were gone, we would work the window loose and two of us would escape to seek help.  Marat for one—he speaks English like a native, or close enough—and Saint-Just for the other.  All that boyish energy must be good for something.  When I could I asked him, Why not all of us?  Ah, Robespierre was unwell.  (Robespierre was always unwell.)  And Camille Desmoulins had been taken away somewhere.  What?  Camille here too?  Yes.  The following conversation:

—They took him away upstairs after he…he tried to fight Saint-Just. 

—Fuck, I would have paid to see that. 

—He’s an idiot.

—But useful, sometimes.

—Not right now.  Listen, Danton.  Now, to be _useful_ , as you put it, you and Robespierre and Saint-Just must pull together.

—Do you think I can’t do that?

So I did.  I pretended to sleep a little longer, and when the boys came down with breakfast I pretended to be stupid and dazed.  Two days later, we were down to just one guard in the house.  He came down to bring us supper and then we could hear him leave.  Thank God for fools!  Saint-Just and I worked the boards off the windows.  As we planned, it was Marat and he who went out to look for help: I stayed.  Someone had to, to look after Robespierre, and to look for Camille in the house.

The little bastard had gotten himself shut up in a little upstairs suite of rooms.  Bathroom, enormous bed, bookshelves.  Token boards across the windows.  They'd given him three bottles of wine to keep quiet. Picture the maiden giving St. George a doubtful look and murmuring tipsily that the dragon wasn’t very nice, to be sure, but really the cave wasn’t so bad when you got used to it.


	4. Desmoulins, end of January

My dearest—Suleau, shall we say today.

(O Suleau, I had thought one might be granted the grace of choosing one’s companions freely after death if not in life.  No matter how many dwelling-places in our father’s house, one should be able eventually to find a given address, even if it takes some wandering the streets and shouting up at windows.  Where are your rooms, old school-friend?  The few rooms I’ve seen thus far belong altogether to the living, and the dead with me are not all of them the company I would have chosen.)

In a few days—tomorrow, next week—we’ve been promised a kind of release from our quarantine.  Are we free?  No.  But we’re to go and live in some modest neighborhood, under the watchful eye of a nursemaid: a young man with the unpromising name of Metz, who speaks laborious bad French and apologizes for it at every word.  He’s an amiable nobody, anxious to please.  If you’ve seen a cat move her kittens you’ve seen Mr. Metz.

I can’t wait to leave.  I have never been asked so many questions since taking my degree.  (Certainly not when I was on trial for my life.)  Questions from policemen, from lawyers, from expensively-dressed people of unknown professions, from doctors of every sex, size, and color.  And these doctors, they don’t stop at questions.  They prick us to see if we bleed.  They inoculate us against diseases we’ve never heard of.  They measure us, they weigh us, they examine every inch of us—and then they ask yet more questions.  Eh!  A jealous mistress would be less trouble, and better company. 

O, Suleau, if you were really here to write to.  I have written a dozen letters like this, to you, to my father, to Lucile…  There is a black woman named Robineau, who asks us yet more questions.  She says it is to help us remember.  She asked me about the letters: did I think they could be sent?  No, I’m not lost to reason yet.  But if anyone comes after me with another notebook and says “I wanted to ask you—” I might just run like a mad dog through the hallways.

O, if anyone were here to write to.


	5. Marat, February

Our new house is both opulent and ugly, the way everything seems to be here.  Bile green wooden shingles, small wooden porches in the front on each story, looking shabby under the old snow.  A kind of netted metal fence encloses small yards in the front and back.  They would be large enough to grow some vegetables, raise a few chickens or rabbits: almost to feed a family, in short.  As far as I can see the space is put to no use.

Inside, again, both ugly and opulent.  Some floors are covered in speckled yellow or green tiles, not very clean; others in a thick but coarse dun carpet that stretches from wall to wall.   Where the plain wood shows, you can see that it has been treated roughly.  The furniture appears to be mostly new, but in several pieces the screws have begun to protrude from the wood.  I asked our keeper about it.  He told me to “take it up with O’Keah,” or some such name.

I told him that I did not complain.  I merely observe.  I have lived in worse places.  But if they can construct a miniature lamp that shines every time you open the refrigerating cupboard, you would think the chairs would hold together.


	6. Marat, February

I believe Dr. H can be molded into a useful ally.  I have a great respect for her skill and intelligence as a doctor—medicine has, unsurprisingly, advanced far beyond the practices of my youth—and Dr. H proves more than willing to share her knowledge.  For the moment I have confined my questions to the medical field.  But to that end she has already freely shown me scholarly articles on her computer.  “It’s against the rules,” she said cheerfully, “so don’t mention it.  I’m not going to waste paper printing these out just to keep you in the dark about the internet for another month.  Now how’s the blistering between your fingers?” 

She has also informed me of previous attempts at resurrection.  Attempts?  Successes.  Previous Marats, previous Robespierres.  Again, “Look surprised when someone else tells you there’s been another Marat or two.” (My amour-propre is sufficient to allow surprise at the idea, yes.)  “But there’s a doctor in London I want to consult about your case.  He might have some experience with it.”  So if she knows a doctor who knows me—if she can contact a doctor who knows me—

The blistering between my fingers, by the way, has nearly disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to cold_hope for letting me borrow Dr. H as needed!


	7. Desmoulins, mid-February

My dearest Suleau,

It snowed a week ago.  Oh, euphemism!  Snow fell?  Snow consumed!  Snow ate up half of the fence around our yard; snow gulped down the steps and the little porch and swallowed whole the low yew bushes in front.  The next day our jailer conscripted help to clear the pathways.  Danton volunteered, and M. le chevalier de Saint-Just.  I was suffering from a sore throat and stayed inside.  The day after that our obligatory outings resumed.  Our jailer—no, I say jailer but really he’s more of a schoolmaster.  You remember, Suleau (O, Suleau, if I could believe my own fiction that you are here to read this)—you remember, Suleau, our Louis-le-Grand rubric.  _There will be an outing on every day free from classes (too few such, some boy mutters in the back of the room) except for the Saturdays before the first Sunday of each month, and the day preceding days of great solemnity (too many such, comes the ritual reply).  In winter, the students will go to their quarters immediately after dinner to prepare for the outing, from which they will return at five o’clock.  Those who are not ready at the time of departure will remain at the college.  Whether going or coming, the students will walk in front of the master of their quarter, in such a way as always to be visible to him.  They will walk neither too fast nor too slowly, nor raise their voices (a little less noise there, young gentlemen) nor offer provocation to anyone (that’s you, Suleau).  In a word, they will behave themselves with modesty and decency (do try, gentlemen).  Arrived at the place set for the outing, students will remain together under the master’s eye.  No one may go away separately, even under the pretense of study, without special permission. They will avoid anything that may lead to tumult or complaint, such as chasing after game (leave that hare be, Fréron, it’s not as though we’ll have it for dinner), entering vineyards, trampling in wheatfields, etc._  

(Have I remembered my catechism?  I think so, for I checked it with Robespierre at our last outing.  No doubt we missed a phrase here or there but the main body of it is in our memories as if graven in stone.  Trampling in wheatfields.  I remember trampling in a wheatfield once, just for the sake of it.  It was only one footstep’s-worth of trampling and it went unnoticed.  I have yet to see a wheatfield here.) 

So our little schoolmaster wraps us up in our heavy ugly greatcoats and marches us out somewhere for the good of our souls.  Before that great snow swallowed up the town, he would walk us round the pond near our house.  Spy Pond, a hateful name.  We receive improving lectures as we walk, if it isn’t too cold for speech.  Unfortunately they are in English.  I ask Danton to translate and he invents stories for me.  For example, O Suleau, did you know that it is a common misconception that the American Robin (a bird like our red-throat but in fact not the same at all) migrates in the winter?  In fact, the American Robin finds itself a pretty grisette and holes up in a garret for the winter, drinking cheap wine and contracting unspeakable diseases until spring, when it runs out of money and writes to its parents, who refuse to send it a single sou until it shows that it’s made something worthwhile from its education, is this at all familiar Camille, god I wish I could find some cheerful girl, diseases or no, don’t you, though really you’re something of a grisette yourself aren’t you and who knows what you’d make do with, have you read that poem on the subject by Swift, the Englishman, it fits you exactly—ah, thank you, Georges-Jacques.  A master of natural philosophy.  No, I have not read the poem by Swift.  I hope it's flattering.

And so we come home and I have been educated.  O marvel!  The next day we go out again into the world, this time to a public library.  I would like to wander it at leisure but our school-day rules apply: _No one may go away separately, even under the pretense of study._ We are allowed novels and poetry—novels and poetry selected ahead of time by the guiding lights of the library.  Saint-Just brought home a great tome called _Les misérables_ , may it bring him joy! and I found an edition of La Fontaine.

Marat instructs me that the next time we go to the library I must divert our jailer’s attention with questions so that he can slip away.  School-days indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Louis-le-Grand regulations are an excerpt from R.R. Palmer's translation in The School of the French Revolution. And Swift's poem was not flattering.


	8. Marat, late February

Our gentle keeper took us to museums today: museums owned by Harvard University, which of course I had a great curiosity to see.  We took the public bus.  I like this system of public transportation.  I shall ask young Mr. Metz for one of the permanent tickets, the Charlie Card.  He will refuse.

The bus left us in a subterranean structure, very complex, the air very stale.  (Camille made some remark to me that I chose not to hear.  He likes to chaff me with being a cave-dwelling ancient.)   When you leave this system of tunnels, you see some of the truths of this world.  We came out near a church. “Very old,” said Metz, and then reconsidered the statement, given our presence.  Across a gulf of magical carriages sits the gated university.  A triumvirate: Religion, Industry, Learning.  We walked through the town, handsome enough with many red brick buildings, very busy with people from all over the world.  And from all this the poor have benefited to the extent that they may huddle under awnings, some with signs, some only with cups for money. 

The museum was of great interest, particularly that portion devoted to natural history.  I mentioned it to Dr. H.  She has offered to accompany me on another visit: we can speak more privately there.  Her fellow-doctor in London has thoughts on a treatment that may relieve some of my discomfort, and Dr. H has promised me what she calls an e-mail account, supposedly so that I can consult with this colleague.  But she’s no fool.  She has explained—casually, obliquely—some of the more accessible facets of these computers. 

What to do with this?  I do not care to remain the guest of this shadowy American committee, nor of its counterpart in France.  When the time seems right, I will need to take some of the others into my confidence.  Saint-Just: he is reliable and intelligent, used to action, and concerned with the people.  Camille, perhaps: he is unreliable and often foolish, but his heart is in the right place and I know he can be led.  But how to manage the two?  Do I speak to Robespierre?  Danton?  I was only useful to them while they wanted my pen set against their political enemies.  Is speaking to Saint-Just the same as speaking to Robespierre?

On the subject of Danton, he made an escape today, walking by himself to the library.  I learned of it when Metz ran into the kitchen and assaulted Camille with an overcoat, bundling him away out the door.  When they returned Camille was laughing at Danton’s exploits.  He had met a woman, it seems, some fair-haired Julie or Lucie.  But after letting him run on a bit, Danton waved Camille into silence.  “It’s not that.  I wanted to stretch my legs.  We are _cramped_ , here.”  Well--we are.


	9. Robespierre, mid-March

We watched a charming picture yesterday evening, Camille and I.  It was _The beauty and the beast_ , what M. Metz calls a “movie.”  Not being colored, it reminded me of an engraving come to life.  When I was quite young I collected prints, pictures, anything like that that I could find, the way a boy does.  My sisters used to come and look at them. They invented stories sometimes.  Perhaps it was this memory, perhaps it was the familiar tale, perhaps it was some quality of the picture itself, but I found this more comprehensible than any of the things M. Metz has shown us on his computer.  You could see, of course, that the moving candle-holders were simply the arms of actors behind a stage-wall, but I liked that.  I liked to see the living men who worked at their art.

There, you see, the monster, the drinker of blood, the rabid tyrant, affects sentiment at a simple children’s story.  The beast.

Camille seemed to enjoy it as well.  We have found a sort of friendship again.  We spoke very late one night after M. Metz showed us a painting of Liberty.  Since then we don’t talk about anything that occurred after 1789.  It is like the days when I had first come to Versailles and he would visit my little room, when we had nothing to share but hope.  We keep a mutual fiction of agreement. But I do not know what hope we should construct now, agreement or not. The world is larger, the peoples connected in ways I barely grasp, and yet no less divided. As humans, we have not yet discovered our brotherhood, only new ways to dwell on differences.

Camille has some secret with Marat.  Their heads are together all day and Marat lectures him endlessly; I asked him about it once and he became evasive.  I don’t have the energy to ask again.  I do not love Marat, but he may be a better influence than some others have been.  And for my part, I have felt such a lassitude… Meanwhile, Saint-Just has a surfeit of energy.  I think he speaks with Marat, too, I think they make plans.  He has been reading, he takes long walks, he speaks with M. Metz.  Some mornings I want to retire like a maiden aunt and raise canaries, and then I think—no, people expect more of you, you must dress, you must shave, you must go downstairs and read the newspaper that has been brought to your doorstep.

I speak very frankly with M. Metz these days, now that he’s told me that the world at large detests me.  It seems frank to me, at least.  He informs me that I have been resurrected before, and that some very private M. Robespierre lives in France under another name.  Perhaps _he_ raises canaries.  Perhaps his neighbors would say “the monster” if they knew who he was.  And Danton, he makes speeches.


	10. Marat, received early April

19 March 2013

My dear Marat—

Our email correspondence has been enough to establish trust: in one another, your trust in your doctor friend, my trust in my own selected friends.  No computers from now on, as I said in my last message.  A letter on paper can be burnt; letters in the ether leave traces on the computer.  If you use any computers at all, use those in the public library, and only for study, not communication.

As you trust your associate and I trust my associate, so also I trust that enclosed you will find sufficient funds and a description of relevant travel itineraries.  The addresses and names are all reliable. I recommend that you and the others depart from the bus terminal at different times, keeping apart from one another while you wait.  Only you need know the final destinations for all the group.  If your companions know nothing but their own business, that’s all they can betray—inadvertently, of course—if caught.

But you are used to all this.  Years of practice in secrecy.  Write to me again, my dear, as soon as you are free!

  
You(rs),

Marat

P.S. While the art of disguise is overrated, I do recommend that as soon as discreetly possible your compatriots make some efforts in the direction of modern hair arrangements and costuming.  If Saint-Just simply cannot be parted from his cravat he should look into the light scarves I see everywhere on young men. I understand the fashion is at least as popular in American cities.

P.P.S  I cannot say too much how I respect your courage in volunteering to explore the American healthcare system without insurance.  Your reports will be invaluable. They will open many eyes.


	11. Early April

**Two notes in English found at the NEA Arlington Property:  
**

**  
**Enclosed find money to remplace book from library, Les misérables, which I carry with me as I have not completed it.  Mille regrets a Mlle Julie.  —St-Just

Citizen Metz was not Informed. —Marat

 

 

**Police Statement, Maximilien Robespierre:**

I know nothing useful concerning the disappearance of Saint-Just, Camille Desmoulins, and Marat.  They have been privately consulting for some time now, I believe, but only when they could discuss anything away from M. Metz, who has guarded us so assiduously.  No doubt they waited for his absence. 

I could not guess where they might have gone.  I preferred not to know.  I lack the energy of a Saint-Just, a Marat, for this kind of adventure. 

I did not hear them depart.  Yes, my room shares a wall with Saint-Just’s, but I must have slept very soundly last night.

That is all I can say.

 

 

**Police Statement, Georges-Jacques Danton**

Ah, another police report!  Do I know anything about the disappearance of Jean-Paul Marat, Louis Antoine Saint-Just, or Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoît-et-cetera Desmoulins, on the night of 10-11 april?

I do not.  Voilà tout.

If—hypothesis—Marat had proposed that I leave with them, I would have said this: I want only to go home.  I cannot carry my home with me here, there, everywhere.  My home is France.  I have lost two wives and three children—no, four children, though I never saw the little girl.  If I have been given a chance to start once again, _I want to go home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's a wrap for now! Thank you all for putting up with this nonsense!
> 
> Up next: The Marat Network.


End file.
